


clockwork cogs

by psycho_raven



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Fix-It, Happy Ending, M/M, Post- Metal Gear Solid 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-15 05:03:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13606116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psycho_raven/pseuds/psycho_raven
Summary: It was about fixing things up, step by step.





	clockwork cogs

**Author's Note:**

> an old piece that I did for an MGS fanzine in the LJ era! Noticed that I didn't have it posted anywhere so I wanted to share. My boy deserves his good ending, goddamit.

 

 

 

 

Silence prolongs itself indefinitely, and once again it’s Snake who prevails and breathes. The brush of the grass against his knees, the texture of it against the fabric of his trousers, the subtle breeze simply flowing by without telling him anything. It feels real, as real as the body in front of him, as his words. 

It wasn’t the first time that man came back to life only for David to redefine everything around him.

He is kneeling, cigarette on the soil. There’s no sound of gunshots, nor shouts, just that infinite silence that even sounds like peace.

So that was it. That was how it felt.

 

 ---

Otacon advances slowly. He knows perfectly the reason he is there, he knows it as well as Snake and even then, it panics him. He’s terrified of what he is about to see.

(Later, David would make it clear that he hadn’t been the only one that was terrified).

He finds David in front of a tombstone he can’t recognize, in front of a body so familiar it causes him shivers. He finds him alive. Dave doesn’t turn around to look at him when he hears the sound of his steps softened by the grass.

“Change of plans.”

It’s the only thing he can say, and his voice comes out rougher than usual. Even without seeing him, Dave can feel his heart pulsing in relief. The walls are still there, the distance makes itself obvious, but it’s Hal who breaks the silence when Dave stands up to go. He spoke with a security he didn't know he had. Snake listens, and even more importantly, he believes him.

Both of them are willing to cross the abyss because they could have lost the opportunity to do it.

They hug ignoring the graveyard, the tombstones, the bodies, the voices, the wounds.

They don’t have time, but they can forego that detail. For now.

 ---

 

Sunny doesn’t ask questions when she sees them coming back together. She only doubts an instant before hugging Dave.

Snake’s shoulders tense for seconds Hal feels eternal, but a firm hand on the head of the girl tells him they are on the good way. She understands.

 ---

 

Snake is not as discreet as before when watching Otacon sideways. He looks at the lines on his forehead, the wrinkles surrounding his mouth, the expression lines where the smiles go. Sometimes their gazes cross, but now Hal doesn’t look away with a simple excuse. He smiles at him, pushes his glasses in a well-known gesture and continues typing at the computer.

David returns his smile. Because it just is so good seeing him smile.

(They had grown old together. Now it was time to live.)

 ---

 

Putting together the pieces of a new life was a slow thing. Both agreed it was a matter of time to get used to it. Otacon suggested a place to live, and Snake seconded the idea motivated by back pains he would never admit.

\---

 

Hal finds him putting away and ordering in boxes his old weapons, closing the last package with the SOCOM inside. Dave turns around to look at him when he recognizes the sound of his steps behind him.

(Otacon had always found a bittersweet look on Snake’s eyes. There was something in them, something that had to do with war, tiredness, and the recently acquired distance. But there was an aftertaste of future, responsibility, philanthropy. Maybe even longing.)

“I think we don’t need those anymore, Hal.”

The connotation of the boxes closed with packing tape to not be opened again was one thing, but hearing him calling him by his name was something different. It felt so good.

“Definitely.”

The gesture was a thousand words worth.

 ---

 

Domestic life ends up being less monotonous than they had imagined. The change had to be slow, that was clear. But even on a day by day basis, there are surprises. Like discovering Snake can cook.

David argues it’s something any soldier could do, to follow instructions. There’s something of a bitter tone in it, but they were used to his sense of humor (and a part of them was glad he had recovered it).

Even then, Otacon can’t help to look away from his screen to the man that, meters away, chops different vegetables with precision and efficiency.  
  
(Sunny insists she knows Snake’s secret: thinking about the person he’s cooking for. Dave doesn’t deny anything.) 

Life, they could build it. The family was already there and it was more than enough.

 ---

 

In some moment of the moving process, they end up sleeping together. Not back to back, or in separate beds. They sleep together like they did years before, and David’s heartbeats are still peaceful and paused, and Hal can't help but notice. There are things that never change.

In some moment of the process of establishing communication, shortening distances, they simply suppress them. It feels like so much time since they had felt each other’s skin. The engineer’s hands exploring to the bone, he feels Dave firm like in the days he insisted on letting his beard grow. Now the mustache tickles him and he feels butterflies inside that he lets out kiss by kiss. Slow, deep kisses.

It’s not brutal or hurried anymore, it’s not an adrenaline injection before the next mission. It’s about doing it slowly, careful to not wake up the girl, now with only the hungry growls of Snake speeding them up.

  
And they knew themselves alive again.

 ---

 

A simple house, enough for three people. Two bedrooms suffice, and a backyard in which Sunny starts spending quality time with the hens. 

Everything goes well.

But they both notice something without saying anything, they’ve been so much time together it’s impossible not to notice, it’s just inferred. Reading in between the lines has never been a challenge for them. They always knew they couldn’t be together forever. It was something they remembered mission after mission, and now, when there isn’t anything to do, reality hits full-force.

It ends up being, Dave can’t blame his coughing on smoking anymore.

 ---

 

Snake accuses him of excessive preoccupation, even knowing what it’s about. He always refused to grow old, even when he felt it in every fiber of his being. Even assuming what would happen, he never let it stop him.

Otacon is the first one to juggle with the possibilities, to sum, to take. He doesn’t have anything to lose, on the contrary, he has everything to lose if he doesn’t try something. And Dave starts suspecting him.

(But Hal is two, three, ten steps already ahead. His brain had started thinking about it as soon as he had found him standing up and breathing.)

 ---

 

He decides to not enroll Sunny. If something fails, he will bear the guilt of it, that responsibility he has the vice to always take. He starts the investigation with an almost-alarming speed, and the damn clock is against him again, and he is alone in this. They have no time, and the compulsive coughing of Snake at night reminds him of everything he can’t ignore anymore.

(David and Goliath, the analogy looked painfully accurate to him.)

 ---

 

Not much time passes until Snake has Hal in front of him, stating they must talk about something important. Dave wouldn’t deny him a word: they sit in front of each other and something in the soldier’s chest is giving him mixed signals.

The message comes to him confused, blurred down in part for everything it means. Hal mentions Big Boss’s body, excessively technical terminology, gene therapy, IGF-1 that had some relation with the variables of growing old. Solutions.

“Are you talking seriously?”  
  
“When have I ever lied to you, Dave?”  
  
That’s enough, after everything and all those years. David would accept a syringe only from Hal.

 ---

 

The steps following the proposal bring them both a particular kind of déjà-vu, an anxiety similar to that which accompanied the preparations for an especially difficult mission. Snake tries not to show that he is skeptical because this time he really wants to believe. He needs it.

They try to continue their daily life with normalcy, a normalcy recently acquired. Things happen quickly and the tension, product of their waiting, is palpable on the air. They wait for the results of the first tests.

(Sunny feigns that she doesn’t notice, but she understands perfectly what’s this all about, and when nobody is looking, she crosses her fingers.)

 ---

 

Pillow-talk had never been their strong point. The “What ifs” cause them both an unexplainable bitterness. And the less they talked about “What would have happened if”, the better. Patience, patience, this is a time to wait.

Snake unconsciously grabs more tightly Hal’s shoulders.

 ---

 

The waiting game is going to kill him. He can notice the diminution of his coughing, the pains being less intense and frequent. Even then, they try to not expect too much. It can be completely psychological, just suggestion says Snake even knowing the myriad of scientific reasons that Hal can list to him, alphabetically.

This time, however, Otacon gives him the answer without bigger preambles.

It’s giving results, goddammit, it works.

Dave could have guessed it without Hal even opening his mouth because his smile is inerasable.

The rest they both had fought for and obtained was there, in a house for three and a backyard with hens. They deserve it, they deserve it so much.

(Sunny watches them smiling and knows everything is alright, definitively and wonderfully alright. This deserved sunny-side up eggs.)

Hal questions himself if he has ever told David how much he has come to love him; how much he has feared to lose him. Snake makes the same question, voicing it this time. There were so many things they had hidden from each other. So many years.

For the first time, they have time. Time to say it all.

 


End file.
